And Then I Turned Into a Mermaid. Laura Kirkpatrick

      

      First published in Great Britain 2019

      by Egmont UK Limited

      The Yellow Building, 1 Nicholas Road, London W11 4AN

      Text copyright © 2019 Laura Steven

      The moral rights of the author have been asserted

      First e-book edition 2019

      ISBN 978 1 4052 9503 1

      Ebook ISBN 978 1 4052 9517 8

       www.egmont.co.uk

      A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

      All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

      Stay safe online. Any website addresses listed in this book are correct at the time of going to print. However, Egmont is not responsible for content hosted by third parties. Please be aware that online content can be subject to change and websites can contain content that is unsuitable for children. We advise that all children are supervised when using the internet.

      Egmont takes its responsibility to the planet and its inhabitants very seriously. We aim to use papers from well-managed forests run by responsible suppliers.

       To Millie – my favourite mermaid in the world

      Contents

       Cover

       Title page

       Copyright

       Dedication

CHAPTER ONE: Barcastic Barracuda

CHAPTER TWO: A Fishy Birthday

CHAPTER THREE: Cake for Dinner

CHAPTER FOUR: The Transformation

       CHAPTER FIVE: So Many Questions

       CHAPTER SIX: The First Hurdle(s)

       CHAPTER SEVEN: The Embarrassing Friend

       CHAPTER EIGHT: The Blow-Up

       CHAPTER NINE: What’s Your Trout?

       CHAPTER TEN: The Trapdoor

       CHAPTER ELEVEN: Clamdunk

       CHAPTER TWELVE: Back to Reality

       CHAPTER THIRTEEN: Jack-in-the-Box

       CHAPTER FOURTEEN: Carrot to Eagle

       CHAPTER FIFTEEN: Purple Tail

       CHAPTER SIXTEEN: Pease Pudding

       CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: Baboon Buttholes

       CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: The Biggest Spectacle at the Zoo

       CHAPTER NINETEEN: Do Penguins Bark?

       CHAPTER TWENTY: Look, a Penguin

       CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: The Strangest Merpower

       CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: The Good Ship Haddock

       Acknowledgements

       CHAPTER ONE

       Barcastic Barracuda

      Molly Seabrook loved the sea and hated the sea in equal measure.

      She loved it for all the obvious reasons: the gushing and fizzing of waves on the shore, the dolphins leaping during summer, the kaleidoscope of red and orange and pink during sunset.

      She hated it because the sea was home to fish. And fish could be caught and battered and served to paying customers in the Seabrook family’s fish ’n’ chip shop where Molly and her sisters were forced to help out. And sometimes, to attract those paying customers, she had to dress up as a giant haddock. With fins and everything.

      She also hated the sea because her bonkers mum was partial to skinny-dipping, which the kids at school absolutely loved to make fun of. Every single lunchtime, without fail, Miranda Seabrook dived into the sea. Naked. And every single lunchtime, without fail, Molly was so ashamed that she wanted to roll around in flour and toss herself in the deep-fat fryer just to avoid the pointing and staring.

      So again, obvious reasons.

      Today, even though it was the end of October half-term, the haddock suit was still hotter than the sun. Trapped in a tomb of polyester scales, Molly was essentially one enormous